What is faithful church ministry?

Would you make a good "Traitor"? Have you got the mojo of a chameleon to hoodwink fellow contestants, like the comedian Alan Carr - this year’s winner of BBC’s The Celebrity Traitors?

Game show The Traitors was inspired by the sinking of the Dutch ship Batavia in 1629. When the Batavia sank off Australia, 250 survivors scrambled ashore an island archipelago. Mutinous traitors fought against a small band of faithful soldiers, culminating in a live-or-die boat race towards an oncoming rescue ship. Who would get there first - the "Traitors" or the "Faithful"? A true story!

In October 2025, The Guardian newspaper cited historian Alice Loxton’s phrase “Quiet Decay” (possibly in response to the “Quiet Revival”), in relation to the demise of churches in England, and underscored the National Churches Trust’s forecast of 900 church closures over the next five years.

The "Occam's razor" question is: Who are the "Faithful"?

Grief - An unexpected evangelism journey

Two weeks ago, I was instantly overwhelmed with an incredible, sustaining peace at the news of my father’s passing.

After the funeral, I travelled to a theology conference via Birmingham airport. The car rental sales assistant asked a few perfunctory questions. He cut loose from his pro forma script with a question: “What do you do for a living?”
“I’m a Christian pastor,” I replied.
“I knew it! You have a peace I saw in another pastor once,” he exclaimed. “So, why is it I don’t see this in other Christians? Is it because they don’t read their Bibles?”

The assistant was a British Muslim.

His colleague entered the fray: “I know, I should read my Bible more often," he said.
It turns out he plays the guitar in a huge church plant in Birmingham. If I were called to start a church in Birmingham, I’d start a Bible study with this young car rental salesman, a bit like Paul meeting Lydia at a river in the city of Philippi (Acts 16v13-16).

Measuring faithfulness

How can Christians measure faithfulness? Certainly, Jesus cautions disciples against helming ministry blithely. And despite The Guardian’s journalistic and phenomenological slant, it is Jesus (and not trends!) who closes churches according to their fruitfulness (John 15) and obedience (Rev. 1). Is faithfulness about crop yields and jingoistic doctrinal dotting i's and crossing t's?

Triangulating faithfulness on uncertain seas

Let's think about this using a picture from the world of sailing. Anchoring a boat requires two steps: The first step is to drop the anchor, let the boat drift a little until the sureness of a tug is felt and the vessel arrests and abruptly swings into wind. Step two is called triangulation: choose three landmarks – a lighthouse, a large tree in a field, a tall building – and take compass bearings. Wait ten minutes, and if the landmarks have not "moved" or the bearings changed, then the anchorage is stable and the vessel secured above the shifting sea.

What about churches? When it comes to step one, using the illustration above, a closing church may simply require a new anchorage (or repositioning) and cutting ropes to obsolete berths. But when it comes to step two, unlike sailing vessels, churches must continually triangulate their positions. So what are the three spiritual landmarks which help churches to triangulate - in other words, in our terms, to be faithful?

1 Holiness

“Make every effort to live in peace with all men and to be holy; without holiness no-one will see the Lord” (Hebrews 12v14 NIVUK).

Without holiness, no one will see God; and no-one will see God in you!

To "keep in step with the Spirit" (Galatians 5v25) is to keep in step with God’s mission (movement) and teaching (living kerygma); and neither is possible without personal holiness. John Wesley tied the three together and I think he is right.

Today’s church needs an indelible mark of holiness.

2 Mission

At the Wailing Wall, people sway as they pray because God is always on the move! Henry T. Blackaby (et al) ^[1] offers churches anchorage advice: “Watch and see where God is working and join him in his work."

God is in the business of seeking the lost - and the lost move around. Without triangulating to mission, churches drift. Triangulating to the mission landmark is exciting - it requires anchorage adjustments.

3 Truth

Jesus uses salt as a metaphor; and while some churches lose their saltiness, others are never poured out! A high concentration of undispensed salt makes a Dead Sea of the Church.

Truth without mission and holiness creates a dry toxicity, as Dr. Martyn Lloyd-Jones suggests: “It is a terrible thing to substitute even true doctrines for a living realisation of the person (Christ)... Dead orthodoxy, in practice, is as bad as heterodoxy, because it is quite useless.” ^[2]

Is your church triangulating faithfulness? re holiness, mission and truth constantly in sight Cast your parish anchor and triangulate to these spiritual landmarks and you will see God’s faithfulness.

- For dad, a sailor and a "Faithful"!

1. Experiencing God: Knowing and Doing the Will of God (2008 Edition); p.69
2. Revival, Crossway Press: Illinois, 1987; pp58-59